David Hendricks: Border trucking may be doomed

Web Posted: 09/05/2007 07:56 PM CDT


San Antonio Express-News

September may be the month San Antonio has awaited for nearly 12 years.

Cross-border trucking finally may be at hand. Even if the first Mexican trucking companies receive their permits soon to start a one-year pilot program, the experiment probably won't last long.

Opponents for now have exhausted their short-term options in Congress and the courts to block Mexican trucks from making U.S. deliveries and vice versa, as originally approved under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

For San Antonio, NAFTA meant a bigger role in the distribution and warehousing industries if truck drivers did not have to stop and exchange northbound and southbound loads in the U.S.-Mexico border zone.

Under the trade agreement, the cross-border provision originally was to allow international deliveries among the border states in December 1995 and continentwide in 2000.

Ever since the Clinton administration ordered delays in the NAFTA provision, San Antonio has lobbied more than any other U.S. city to see cross-border trucking started because it has the most to gain economically.

Actually, all of North America has much to gain. Cross-border trucking promises to reduce the inefficiency of the border exchange of containers between carriers and drivers. Time and money would be saved by a smoother flow of raw materials and products.
San Antonio could be an ideal distribution city, with interstates and rail lines running in all directions. Little international freight stops here, however, because San Antonio is only 2 1/2 hours from the border.

Freight to and from the Monterrey-Saltillo, Mexico, industrial center does not stop in San Antonio, even though it should be a convenient one-day trip. That is because it must change drivers at the border, usually with a one-day delay or longer.

Trucking companies therefore invested in few terminals or warehouses in San Antonio as U.S.-Mexico trade zoomed after NAFTA. Without more terminals and warehouses, San Antonio often has been overlooked for industrial plants during the past dozen years.

San Antonio therefore has been stuck as a place to receive freight, but with little to ship elsewhere, an imbalance that logistics companies shun.

If Mexican trucks start making deliveries this month into the United States, they won't venture far into the interior in the first weeks and months. San Antonio would be one logical stop for Mexican truck drivers, allowing U.S. carriers to finish deliveries.

But San Antonio should not assume that cross-border foes will cease their political fight once the border opens. The Teamsters and its allies are continuing their federal lawsuit to stop cross-border trucking, and opposition continues to simmer in Congress, especially among Democrats.

Congress even might pull funding for the experiment before it is scheduled to end.

Even if the one-year test period for cross-border trucking is completed, it would end right in the heat of next year's presidential race. Even if the test period is successful, in terms of saving time and money on shipments, neither political party would have the stomach to bring up the idea of permanent cross-border trucking.

If the Democrats maintain or strengthen their control of Congress in 2008, the party can be expected to find a way to block cross-border trucking on a permanent basis. A Democrat-run U.S. Department of Transportation, if a Democrat is elected president, certainly would not push for it.

U.S.-Mexico trade relations would take a hit. And the waiting in San Antonio would start all over again.

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